Haunted Hills

 
Both Prompts
Word Count = 1,979

Haunted Hills

     A rowdy mob of about twenty adults stormed through a broken gate that seemed to scream in pain as they opened it. “I wonder how they did that.” Helen, a female in the crowd, said.

     They stopped just before going up the stairs to that old rundown house. The ones behind almost ran over the ones in front. After a little angry mumbling Victor is pushed toward those stairs. They also screamed in pain as he walked up to the door. He rang the bell that started screaming too. “This family really loves Halloween. The whole place must be rigged like this.” Whispered Victor.

     About a minute later the door creaked open to reveal two pair of legs standing just inside that house. The rest of the couple was hidden in darkness. “I’m sorry but the haunted house isn’t open yet.” Said the male homeowner named Bruce.

     “That’s why we are here.” Cora, a female in the back, shouted. “We don’t want you to open it again.”

     “Why not?” Nina, the female homeowner, asked. “Our house is very popular – especially among the teenagers.”

     “It’s too popular.” Patrick, a male up front, said. “Some of our children are starting to act very weird.”

     “They are teenagers. Aren’t they supposed to be weird?” Nina’s voice had an echo effect to it.

     Cora spoke again. “Not this strange. They want to come to this haunted house every night. Some of them have even volunteered to be a part of it.”

     “What’s wrong with that? That’s why we moved to Haunted Hills.” Bruce could barely be heard. Those in the back kept asking him to speak up.

     “That’s something else we don’t like about this place. You just got here a month ago. Most people when they move spend the first couple of months unpacking and setting up their new place. But you didn’t do that. You created this haunted house instead.” Victor cleared his voice before speaking.

     “This place has always been spooky. Did you know that a cursed family used to live here until they went completely crazy and killed each other off?” Patrick said.

     The feet and legs faced each other. Mumbling and whispers, sometimes very loud by Nina, could barely be heard. Some of those in the crowd tried to listen to it by craning their necks forward. After a few minutes those feet and legs faced the mob again.

     “Yes, we know all about the deaths that happened here. That’s one of the reason we bought this house.” Bruce spoke louder now to be heard. “Didn’t they kill a lot of Haunted Hillians before they killed each other?”

     “That’s true.” Laura, a female in the middle of the crowd, spoke up. Only her voice could be heard. “According to legends it all started about two thousand years ago when a group of young males played a joke on an older female. She was a witch and she put a curse on all of their families. The curse was that they could only eat living human flesh. They have been doing it ever since then.”

     “That is what we heard too.” Bruce was almost shouting to be heard now. “I don’t think there are any more of them around though. What I have heard is that they died out with this last family.”

     “We kind of got sidetracked here a little didn’t we. You are here to stop us from having a Haunted house – right. That isn’t going to happen. We are going to open tonight as usual. If you don’t want your teenagers to come here alone then come with them. The more that came the better we like it.”

     Bruce continued after Nina stopped to catch her breath. “There is nothing that you can do to stop us anyway. We haven’t broken any laws.”

     “How many haunted houses, places, do you have in Haunted Hills? Isn’t it a couple of hundred? That’s one of the reasons we moved here. You get people from all over the world to come here. Especially this time of year.”

     “Haunted Hills in like Disneyland. But instead of Mickey Mouse you have death.”

     “If you closed us down you would have to do it with everyone else. You can’t do that. After all, if you did that this town would really be dead.”

     “Your house is different than all the others. We don’t know what it is. But there is a difference that we don’t like.” Victor said.

     Laura poked her head above the two tall males in front of her. “Your house became haunted so fast it’s almost like you landed it here. We know you didn’t. but that’s the way it looks to us.”

     Both Bruce and Nina laughed with an eerie, spooky, cackling sound in their voice that make everyone in the mob shiver a little. “We aren’t that bad. If you all come tonight we will prove it to you. All of your fears about us will be gone forever if you do.”

     Bruce and Nina stepped out of the shadows. The crowd stepped back. Some screamed. Bruce and Nina already looked like death. Their faces were dripping white from their white faces. Both of their hairs was sticking out. It looked unkempt. Their clothing was torn ripped gray rags.

=====-=====-=====-=====-=====-=====

     “Welcome to our home. My name is Bruce. This is my spouse Nina. One of us will be giving you a guided tour of our place.”

     “There are a lot of you at the moment. So we will split you up into two groups. I will take the first group. My spouse will take the second.”

     Nina started walking among the crowd of thirty-five in the hallway of her house. It looked as spooky and dead as she did. She smiled at several she saw earlier that day – and nodded slightly in acknowledgement. Nina started picking people to be a part of her group.

     Kneeling down Nina came face to face with a young girl. “I’m sorry. But you’re too young to take a tour of our place.”

     “I’m not too young. I’ll be ten in a couple of months.” Karen mumble that last sentence.

     “Did you say ten? I’m sorry but you have to be at least thirteen to come in here. If I could I would let you. I want everyone of all ages to experience this. But the law states you have to be thirteen or older. You come back in three years and I will personally give you a tour.”

     “You won’t be here in three years. You’ll be lucky if you are here by the time I turn ten.”

====-====-====-====

     Nina entered a small bedroom first. The others crowded behind, but around, her once they were all in there too. “This is my daughter’s room. She isn’t here right now. But as you can see one of her friends is here.”

     On the bed in a sitting positon sat Thomas. His head cocked to its side with his tongue flapping out. Thomas’ eyes were bulging out a little. And his guts where exposed in his open chest. Blood was squirting out of that chest too. But they could hear his heart still beating and pulsating.

     “That’s Thomas. My fifteen-year-old neighbor. What is he doing here?” Cora asked.

     “He’s one of our volunteers.” Nina turned and started walking back out the door.

     Cora started laughing. “Thomas has never volunteered for nothing.”

     “Is he dead?” Asked a teenager of about fourteen that Nina didn’t recognize. “He really looks like he’s dead.”

     “Yes, he does. Doesn’t he.” Nina smiled a smile no one else could see as she walked out that door.

====-====-====-====

     The next room they entered was the master bedroom. “This girl had a splitting headache. So we brought her in here to rest.”

     A girl about seventeen sat on that bed too. She had a hatchet sticking into her head with the handle facing outward. Blood could be seen on the sharp edge of that hatchet. There was also blood dripping down pale, almost white, looking facing.

     “Let’s move on.” Nina motioned her group toward the door. “She looks like she dead off her feet too.”

====-====-====-====

     A young boy screamed just after they entered the kitchen. Sitting at the dining room table were two kids. Mitch was sixteen and Elaine was thirteen. They were eating two adults lying on top of that table. Elaine had a male adult. She was chopping away at his chest. Mitch was eating the leg of the female adult.

     “Are they really eating those people?” Asked the same unknown girl.

     “Of course not. It’s all just a trick.” Victor said holding his daughter.

     “Victor, isn’t it, is right. They are probably just nibbling on them. Mitch and Elaine had a big dinner only a couple of hours ago.”

     The man moaned. “That guy is still alive.” Said the screamer.

     “My children like their dinner to be alive. It makes it’s it more pleasurable for them to eat it. That’s okay for other children. But for adults they have to knock them out first.” The crowd looked at the blood dripping on a burner by a skillet that Nina was point at.

====-====-====-====

     “It looked like it was coming right out of the television!” Patrick said pointed at the television in the living room. “I just saw a hand coming out of it a second ago.”

     “I’m sure you did. That’s Bruce’s uncle Walter. He’s been living in there ever since he was pulled in about a hundred years ago. Every so often he reaches out to try to grab someone to pull in there with him. It’s usually a child. He loves children. That’s a personal reason why we don’t let children on the tours. Walter can also stick his head out a little. But that’s all he can do. He can’t reach too far out. So if you don’t get too close he won’t be able to grab you too.”

=====-=====-=====-=====-=====-=====

     The next morning the same group of complainers, plus a dozen more, showed up at their house. Not only did Bruce and Nina talk to them so did Mitch and Elaine. Elaine and Mitch didn’t look too good. Bruce and Nina didn’t look much better.

     “We didn’t like your haunted house. It’s too realistic.” Laura said from behind two new tall males.

     One of the newcomers spoke next. “We don’t want you here.”

     Victor, now in the middle of the crowd, stepped forward. “We want you to leave. Either you can leave now and maybe live or you can stay and die.”

     “The choice is yours. What will it be?”

     Just then Elaine started to sway. A second later she collapsed to the deck on the family’s front porch. “It has already begun.” Cora said as she scooped to check out the child.

     Bruce and Nina went to their child. “What wrong with her?” Nina asked.

     “We know you have a family curse. You are one of those families who was cursed by that witch.” Another newcomer said.

     “You are right whoever you are.” Bruce finally said after looking at Nina then Mitch and Elaine. “We lied to you about who we are. There are a lot of us still around. One of the reasons we came here is to find out what really happened to the cursed family who used to live here.”

     “You’ll find out soon enough.” Patrick said. “We lied to you too. You have been eating us for about a month now. Using this haunted house as a cover. That’s what’s going to drive you crazy. It’s what is going to make you end up killing each other too. According to the curse you can only eat living flesh. But we aren’t living anymore. The last family has been here for decades. All of us have been dead for years.”